Out came the credit card and low and behold only 40 hours later I am sitting kicking serious IK+ butt once again with my brand new comp pro. Gamebase64 is kicked in and a couple of games of Delta later I am beaming like it is 1988 again. Sadly though not everything is perfect in my gaming heaven and the buttons are not quite what I remember.

Whatever happened to my old comp pro 5000, I wonder. The cool as heck clear one, that I modified with a plank of wood screwed to the bottom to make activisions decathlon that wee bit easier (X-Arcade eat my shorts), you know the one, which is held together with sellotape, after a rather frustrating episode with Body Blows. If I could just find it maybe, just maybe I could swap the buttons, as I am pretty sure they were better than this.

Then it struck me with a flash of inspiration. My grans loft, a possibility, could in the dark, several years later there still be a box with my old discarded, favourite ever joystick, surely not. So with hope, off round I popped. Hi Gran, just needing to pop into your loft to check something I claimed in the kind of hurry that meant I was back in 1987 again, that wee impatient lad, that just couldn't wait the 20m for football manager to load. Into the dark with my grans wee pink torch I ventured.

As I struggled to climb into the loft with my dodgy knee-footie two weeks ago and what felt like a minor ligament tear and no ladder. I could make out in the distant an Amiga 500 box, surely not, that’s still there I thought, after all these years that’s where it went. Sadly my C64 departed into home computer heaven when I plugged my 1541 drive in with both on (oh thanks you for emulation - where's the we’re not worthy emoticon when you need it). Anyway up I clambered with renewed optimism, and low and behold when I opened up the tattered amiga box there it was amongst a selection of micro switches, buttons, screws and TV modulators my sellotape stricken clear competition pro 5000.

So the story ends here you may think but no I say it doesn’t, for those of you that have stayed with me this long, stay a while, stay forever…no sorry stop that (1987 again). I do get to the point in the end, the reason for my story will all become clear very, very soon, oh get on with it, ok, ok.

What’s in those other two boxes I thought, my old Amiga Powers in hope (hint hint Mort, nudge, nudge, wink wink (only teasing). No they all went to the magazine repository in the sky when I moved out. Anyway what the heck, ripped open with gusto I did to be pleasantly surprised with a box of amiga games I had thought long gone. My old originals still in decent nic, well as can be expected after 10+ years in a loft with only the spiders to keep them company.

So then, the last box, what’s in here, rip, tear went the masking tape. Then stunned silence, the noise of a jaw dropping, a smile descended on this aging face. Is that a Paradroid cassette I spy, Elite the C64 original, Sentinel, Uridium, Match Point, the list goes on. My C64 games I purchased nearly 20 years ago, lost, but never forgotten, amazingly in all their data tape glory. I sat there for what must have been hours, no minutes, ok 45seconds tops. Looking at these tiny items from my youth that gave me so much happiness and joy was something I never expected to ever see again, I suppose it’s the only way that I can explain what the C64 and Zzap64 meant to me as a lad. Have I explained anything, can I really, probably not. I am sure you all know anyway, what it meant. You don’t need this lad to tell you anything do you.

P.S. The buttons in the new comp pro are fine, I had my grass is greener glasses on earlier but thank god I did or the tapes may have lain there for another 10 years…….

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